Overview

""Seldom do writers on the Holocaust have access to diaries from both a mother and her daughter. With these materials in hand, Pauline Steinhorn crafted a wonderful book about her mother and grandmother, retelling, often in their own voices, the story of their struggles."" -Dr. Michael Berenbaum, Distinguished Professor of Jewish Studies, American Jewish University Bronia Feldman never imagined she would become the backbone of an underground medical lifeline, least of all inside the brutal forced-labor system of the HASAG munitions factory in occupied Poland. Torn from her family in September 1942, she arrives there shattered by grief. The only force strong enough to keep her alive is the chance to save others. Left behind in the ghetto of Skarzysko-Kamienna are her husband and two young daughters. Her 13-year-old daughter, Hajuta, has been sent to a nearby labor site. Bronia seizes a rare opportunity to escape and manages to reach her daughter. After their brief reunion, she faces an impossible choice: flee into the forest to join the partisans, or slip back to the place she has just escaped. When they are reunited months later, the moment is both miraculous and heartbreaking. Hajuta is no longer the girl Bronia remembers. Together they endure still darker days when they are deported to Bergen-Belsen in January 1945. This true story of a Jewish mother and daughter is a testament to courage, devotion, and the fragile thread of hope that sustained them. Amid cruelty and terror, they also encounter moments of humanity. Throughout it all, both cling to memories of the River Kamienna, where they once danced, played music, and believed in a future. For Bronia and Hajuta, the river is more than a memory. It is a promise that one day they might return home.

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Reviews

""Seldom do writers on the Holocaust have access to diaries from both a mother and her daughter. With these materials in hand, Pauline Steinhorn crafted a wonderful book about her mother and grandmother, retelling, often in their own voices, the story of their struggles-together and apart and together again-from the ghetto of Skarzysko-Kamienna to the forests and slave labor camp, then to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in the days when the Typhus epidemic that took the lives of Anne and Margot Frank in the winter of 1945, was lethal to many thousands. Trained medically, Bronia Feldman is indispensable to the inmates and even useful to their masters, who need their workers to work. Heroically, daringly, courageously, she tries to save those who can be saved and protect her fellow Jews if at all possible. Bereft of her husband and two younger daughters, who were deported from the ghetto, she fiercely protects her oldest child, Hajuta, who at 13 must become a woman to survive for a time on her own. The story is told with accuracy and grace. It is a work to be savored. And though it probes the depths of darkness with brutal honesty, it also explores rare moments of compassion and decency by the perpetrators and the intense struggle for survival."" -Dr. Michael Berenbaum, Distinguished Professor of Jewish Studies and Director of the Sigi Ziering Institute, American Jewish University ""There is almost a cinematic quality to Dreaming of the River. The details in Pauline Steinhorn's descriptions take the reader to each location during their harrowing journey through the camps of Poland and Germany. You can see the ghetto, the barracks, and the forest. And you can feel their emotions as well. They drive home the themes of family, perseverance, and uncertain survival. There are countless books written about the Holocaust, but none that I know of mirror the perspectives of a mother and her teenage daughter. Pauline Steinhorn has done a remarkable job of curating and weaving their stories together in a riveting fashion."" -Cliff Hackel, Emmy, Peabody and Dupont award-winning filmmaker and producer of My Dear Children, a pogrom-era documentary ""In Pauline Steinhorn's stunning Dreaming of the River, the River Kamienna, a mute but eloquent character, keeps alive happy recollections of the years before the Holocaust turned its fury upon Ms. Steinhorn's family. In the words of Hajuta, a young woman forced into inhuman slave labor by the Nazis, 'These memories would keep me alive. God was still here. There was life beyond this.' Dreaming of the River is a book bold, bruising, and brave."" -Martin Goldsmith, author of Alex's Wake: The Tragic Voyage of the St. Louis to Flee Nazi Germany and a Grandson's Journey of Love and Remembrance ""In this important account, Pauline Steinhorn recounts her mother's and grandmother's remarkable story of survival, from the Skarżysko Ghetto to the HASAG labor camp and eventually to Bergen-Belsen. Survival at HASAG often depended on acts of kindness by individuals who, in unimaginable circumstances, never lost their humanity. This eloquently written story of women's resilience, strength, and hope is profoundly inspiring and reminds us that there can be light even in the darkest of times."" -Stacey Saiontz, Granddaughter of Holocaust Survivors; Member, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Education Committee; Member, Board of Directors, The Anne Frank Center USA ""A powerful reminder."" -Ronna Borenstein-Levy, Immediate Past Chairperson, Board of Directors, Jewish Council for the Aging of Greater Washington

Author Information

Pauline Steinhorn delights in telling other people's stories. Throughout her career as an award-winning filmmaker and writer, she's written and directed films about scientists, artists, Supreme Court Justices, nurses, clowns, Native American dancers and more. Her documentaries have aired on PBS, Maryland Public Television, Sesame Street and Discovery Channel. She's produced short films for the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Smithsonian and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Her essays have been published in The Wall Street Journal and Moment magazine. Pauline speaks about her family's Holocaust experiences during Yom HaShoah commemorations and in middle and high school classrooms through the JCRC, Jewish Community Relations Council. She lives with her husband, Bill Creed, in Chevy Chase, MD, near their two adult children, Colin Oppenheimer and Katherine Creed. When she's not writing or directing, Pauline can be found hiking in the Blue Ridge Mountains, kayaking off Chincoteague Island, or catching frogs with her young grandchildren.

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